The 5 Most “Oh No She Didn’t!” Moments From Kate McKinnon’s Live Show

Kate McKinnon is definitely the breakout star from the past few seasons of Saturday Night Live. With pitch perfect impressions of Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres and Penelope Cruz, Kate has taken Kristen Wiig’s spot as the person we are most excited to see hit the SNL stage. Plus, her character Sheila Sauvage, a drunk woman who graphically makes out with a dude in a bar at closing time is so creepy, we could never forget her. And we aren’t the only ones who have taken notice. She has been cast along with Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy and SNL co-star Leslie Jones in the upcoming Ghostbusters movie.

So when we heard that she was coming to Toronto to headline the TO Sketchfest, we couldn’t miss this chance to see one of comedy’s funniest newcomers.

These are our 5 most “Oh No She Didn’t!” moments from Kate McKinnon’s show.

1) We Want To Read The Graduate Thesis About The Bachelor

Kate went to the college graduation of her younger sister recently and discovered something ripe for the comedic picking. The names of the thesis projects of all of the graduates. So she came up with a few of her own. While doing an interpretive dance to some easy listening music, Kate read the names of potential thesis projects as they popped up in a slideshow presentation. Our favourite, (we didn’t write it down but this is pretty darn close): “The Bachelor As America’s Second Greatest Shame: I-owhhhhaaaat? Those girls aren’t moving to a farm in Iowa to marry him because they are all models, yo.” So very, very true.

2) The Embarrassment of The Uzbekistani Figure Skater

When Kate was watching the Olympics once upon a time, she noticed that the figure skating commentators can be real, shall we say, jerks. They hold the athletes up to a really high standard. But, she recalled one time when a skater from Uzbekistan was so bad that the commentators had no choice but to add a positive spin on the skater’s complete failure. So to recreate that moment, Kate played a video of a completely inept figure skater (who looked noticeably like Kate with a uni-brow *wink*), just bombing on the rink while Kate live narrated it in the style of an Olympic commentator. Sure her commentary was great but gosh-damn that video was funny. We don’t claim to be figure skating experts but we are pretty sure that running into the boards is not a triple lutz.

Kate is an incredible impressionist. Besides the ones we listed above, she does a killer German Chancellor Angela Merkel and as we learned in the latest episode of SNL, Iggy Azalea. But the one she busted out during her SNL audition was of Penelope Cruz. It is hilarious. Although last night’s audience was probably itching for some Biebs, what we got instead was a little Penelo-P. Kate recited Penelope’s latest Nespresso campaign that raves about the quality and convenience of the machine. But she rewrote the script to be a bit more realistic. Don’t have milk at home? Sorry you can’t have a latte. Nespresso, the N is for “Nnnnnn…. let’s go to a coffee shop so we can get a latte.”

Here is a taste of what it was like.

4) Kate McKinnon Flaunts Her Muffin Top

It really must be so hard to be an actor or a comedian coming up in the entertainment biz. You are basically inviting casting agents to pick at you at every audition. One of Kate’s most memorable auditions was for a commercial about getting rid of your muffin top. You know, that little chub that hangs over your jeans if they are too tight. To illustrate on stage exactly what was asked of her in the audition, Kate lifted up her shirt to show off her love handles (admittedly quite small). Then, while recalling the request of the casting agent to make it look worse, she pulled the fat up out of the waist of her pants and had it hang over even more. She made sure everyone in the audience knew that this was just for our eyes only and should not be posted on the Internet. We obliged.

5) Who Wants A Slideshow About Religious Persecution Mixed With Pictures Of Kate’s Nail Clippings?

It’s no secret that Hozier’s breakout hit “Take Me To Church” is about how religious institutions can undermine an individual’s humanity and that is a message that Kate can get behind. So to close out the show, Kate wanted to play it straight and perform an earnest cover of the song along with a slideshow of images of religious conflicts around the world. Heavy right? Maybe not so heavy if she “accidentally” included some of her own personal pictures in to the mix including pictures of her face after oral surgery, her cat husband and her crotch sweat after a run. She may have found the one way to make us laugh around the world’s horrors. Not at. Around.